


Everything changes (did I stay the same?)

by Ghostlaments



Series: Everything is Different (Lisanna fics) [1]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Coming of Age, Edolas, Family, Gen, Light Angst, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 12:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5626252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostlaments/pseuds/Ghostlaments
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Would it be better to be dead? Would it hurt less to be lifeless, instead of trapped here with these siblings which aren't her own? </p><p>First part of a series going in depth about Lisanna's two years in Edolas.<br/>Part one is Strauss-centered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything changes (did I stay the same?)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I'm here to give lots of Lisanna love because she has little recognition and too much hate nice to meet you
> 
> I'm very new to AO3 so please give me tips I have no idea how anything works smh ;;;
> 
> Edit: made some changes to the very start so it matches better with canon

She woke up with this unavoidable sinking feeling—

  
_I'm dead._

  
But her body ached and something felt broken (everything felt broken) and there was no wind in her lungs and everything just hurt—hurt so bad she decided there was no way she had died. Not yet, not yet.

  
She lay there sobbing, immobilized by pain. Where was Mira? Where was her brother?

Why wasn't she dead?

  
Somehow, now, the trees looked different and the hard cold ground felt different (if that was possible) and air felt…the air felt heavy. It felt still. It felt wrong. Lisanna took it in, because it distracted her from the pain. Only barely.

She passes out again, on the cold hard dirt. When she awakes, it's midday and there's no one to be seen. She painfully pulls herself to her feet and climbs until she finds a strange looking structure with the fairy tail crest. Fatigued and dizzy from pain, she cautiously limps towards the open door. As soon as she's in sight, the entire guild jumps to their feet. She catches sight of people who look like her siblings. They aren't her siblings. These people aren't her comrades!

overwhelmed, she feels herself go down again.

  
• • •

  
She awakes to Mirajane, a sweet, calm, not-Mirajane-Mirajane. It's definitely Mirajane though. "Oh, Lisanna, you're okay!" She clasps her hand warmly, smiling so sweetly it seems evil. Lisanna smiles back uncertainly.

  
"Where…am…I?" She tries cautiously, using her injury in her favour.

  
Mirajane frowns. "The guild, obviously. Oh dear, the injury is worse than I thought. Do you know what year it is?"

  
"782?" Lisanna assumes. Mirajane nods, relieved. Another smile breaks across her face. Lisanna smiles back, this version of her sister's smile so bright, so contagious. That and her own relief seeping in. She's passed a test — for now.

  
Feigning memory loss, she learns. It was a mission – catching a lost pet – The ground broke – she fell – so glad she's alive – thought for sure she'd cracked her skull - a miracle she survived such a drop - it went it. It truthfully wasn't far different from her own accident.

  
For a moment she feels anger – at Elfman for hitting her (even if it wasn't him) at Mira for not being strong enough (even if that was completely unfair) – at herself for stepping in front of that beast (even if she didn't regret trying) – at both of them for bringing her (even if they didn't know) – even at Natsu, for not coming, not stopping her.

  
It passes as quickly as it had come and she feels crushing guilt for ever thinking like that.

  
She regrets it for the next week, hardly looking her other siblings in the eyes (although it only worries them more)

  
•••

  
Elfman is much like her Elfman, when he was young. Timid and sweet. Always so nervous. Soft expressions. oh so trusting. Partially a pushover. and a much needed break from the constant demand to "be a man".

  
(Lisanna finds it invading her own speech, when did she become her brother? When they fight, she uses against him, shouts to man up, be a man, no matter what they fight about. This Mirajane and this Elfman don't understand it, but she does, and it hurts)

  
She pretends it doesn't bother her, that this quiet Elfman that's so nostalgic is better company than her Elfman, that she prefers not being around all the endless yelling.

  
(Why doesn't he fight them, she wonders as Jet and Droy hound Elfman again, criticizing his softness. Why hasn't he punched them yet?)

  
•••

  
They don't walk home like they did before, it's too dangerous. Lisanna misses the feeling of silently walking to their house, hands linked or not linked or gently brushing now and then. She misses the cold of winter, feeling chilled but content because her siblings are there, are beside her. She misses them, gone now, replaced by these...these...

  
(If anyone is replacing, it's her)

  
Now rooms are just above the guild, for they can't have real homes because if they did, Erza Knightwalker would hunt them down. _Why is this life so…caged?_ Lisanna wonders bitterly.

 

Never has she been with her siblings so close for so long. It softens the blow that they're different, but she still goes a little mental.

 

It's only been over half a year since the incident and already she's losing it. She shouldn't be here, with them, these…

 

(Impostors hangs silently in the air. She can't bring herself to say it, think it, when she knows she is the imposter, pretending to be their dead sister. Why can't she let them move on in peace?)

 

She ignores them. It goes on days, almost two weeks, until Mirajane corners her outside the guild one overcast day. "Is something wrong?" She asks, so so sweetly it almost fools Lisanna and she almost says "no, nothing, why do you ask?" But there's fire in her eyes and venom in her smile and Lisanna decides lying is a bad choice.

 

It doesn't mean she'll tell the whole truth.

 

"I'm sorry," she begins, choosing her words carefully. "I just feel…( _fake fake fake fake fake_ ) unneeded. Like I'm not suppose to be here, I should be… (in earthland, where you aren't so kind and Elfman isn't so soft)…dead. I don't know!" she chokes, voice breaking. "This isn't right! I'm not—"

 

(Your Lisanna. She doesn't let it slip out, but somehow, for a second, she feels Mirajane did hear her, knows what she's trying to hide.)

 

Mirajane comforts her anyway, whispering words of reassurance. Lisanna listens to her, but she can't deny the black hole of guilt inside of her, slowly eating away. All she can do is ignore it, pretend it doesn't exist. She let's herself sink into her sister's counterpart's warm embrace.

 

With that comes her wave of acceptance, that this is where is she and this is where she will be.

 

(One day she'll tell them. Not today.)

 

•••

 

The days blur together. Lisanna feels at peace for once, even though they are constantly running. Ironic. Fairy tail, her Fairy Tail, seems a dream away. It hurts to remember, so she doesn't.

 

A year passes and Lisanna silently, secretly celebrates the anniversary of her "death". Why would anyone else celebrate it like her? The anniversary of the day she almost died? How ridiculous does that sound? So she remembers alone.

 

She does it by staying with her siblings all day, engaging in everything they want her to, always keeping _her_ siblings in mind. _I'll come to you, I miss you, please wait for me_ she says, over and over, until the words almost lose meaning.

 

The days pass faster. Earthland drifts farther from her mind. And when it feels like she'll never go home, when it feels like this is home and home has been nothing but this, when Mira and Elfman the siblings she knew feel unreal, a dream, just when she becomes apart of this world—

 

Everything is flipped upside down.

 

•••

 

She never actually intended to leave. How could she? To leave her siblings once again, to hurt them, break them, unintentionally, _again_ , how could she even consider—

 

There's a force pulling at her, an earthland feel she hasn't felt for two years. She feels the tug of magic, her magic, unique but so similar to her siblings. and with it the last remaining chance of her staying with these siblings vanishes.

 

She tries to stay anyway — gripping at them as Mira once gripped at her. But like last time, she's leaving, her physical form dissolving.

 

"We knew," they say, Lisanna's charade crumbling. She was not as good an actor as she had herself believe, her acting was pointless—

 

"How?" she breathes, tears forming, threatening to spill. How could they have known? How could they have known and said nothing, pretended beside her, how could they have spent two years suffering, but let her live with them like that?

 

(Lisanna realizes she wasn't the only one unwilling to let them move on)

 

 _How could they have noticed, when no one did,_ she wonders, _or did everyone else notice too?_

 

 _They didn't_ , she replies almost immediately to herself. _They didn't but these are my siblings, no matter what world, what universe, what plane of existence just I as I would know, they know._

 

She clings more desperately to Mirajane because she won't hurt this Mirajane like she hurt her own, she won't do it, she has to stay but she knows she can't—

 

"Go Home," Mirajane says and lets go of Lisanna's hand. She hesitates to loosen her grip, though, and that is what sends the tears, hot and heavy, down Lisanna's face, as she melts into the sky.

 

The last image of Mirajane she'll ever have is the way she collapsed into elfman's arms, finally letting the act disappear.

 

•••

 

What she didn't account for was her siblings, her Mira, changing.

 

She almost hesitated, almost stopped, seeing a sister almost mirroring the one she left. For a heartbeat she was back in Edolas, watching the tears stream down Mirajane's face as she disappeared.

 

But she was back, she was home, so instead, she picked up the pace and flung herself at them, her own tears falling harder, faster.

 

(They're joyful tears, a sweet relief.)

 

And Elfman is crying and she wonders if he changed too, if he is soft and submissive and painfully sweet.

 

(But he chokes out the word man within his gibberish and her worries vanish)

 

 

She is crying and they're crying and it's raining and everything is wet wet wet and is she drenched in rain or tears but it doesn't matter it won't ever matter

 

because she's _home_.

 

•••

 

Lisanna misses the fights Mira would have with Erza, with everyone. She misses the fiery personality her sister used to flaunt. She also misses the fear and power that followed behind her. It's still there, subdued, (which, somehow, might be scarier) even though it doesn't feel like it.

 

She misses the freedom, the life almost free from guilt. She sees the guilt now, hiding behind her siblings eyes and in the way they act around her. After all, for them she had died. For them she was gone, vanished.

 

(She tries very hard not to think of Mirajane and Elfman back in the other world.)

 

 

She learns about Mira's fall, and her return, and it breaks her heart. Because she caused that, even if it wasn't her fault. She learns of Mira's change, the way she would force a smile and not a grimace, easing into the quiet and kind Mira that Lisanna almost wishes she wasn't used to.

 

but she can't help but be happy, despite the setbacks. She's home, finally.

**Author's Note:**

> part one of three. Can you tell I used Mira for earthland and Mirajane for Edolas? yea.
> 
> these were suppose to be in one single long one-shot but the plot went sideways lmao
> 
> tips are highly appreciated! 
> 
> Thanks for reading


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